Wisconsin woodlands are being taken over by alien invaders! Alien invasive plants, that is. Among the worst interlopers are garlic mustard, buckthorn, wild grape vine and honeysuckle. Garlic mustard spreads the fastest and many people fail to recognize it on their property until it’s way too late. Here’s one of the reasons: whoever came up [Continue]
Ouch! I’m not kidding – thistles are edible. You can eat the leaves, stems, roots and flowers. And guess what? The extremely invasive Canada thistle is reportedly the tastiest. Now, I’m not suggesting you go out and grow a bunch of Canada thistle to eat. In fact that would be illegal since Canada thistle [Continue]
You thought purple loosestrife was bad? There’s a new biological bully taking over the marshland: meet phragmites. This gargantuan grass is so invasive that it’s rolled over other marsh invaders such as loosestrife, reed canary grass and non-native cattails like a steamroller. You’ve seen phragmites. It’s a big sturdy grass, up to 20 feet tall, [Continue]
Okay, so you know you should have a first aid kit – a good one, not a cheapie one – with you when you’re in the field or forest or on the water, right? But what if it’s in your buddy’s car, back at the cabin, or even on the counter at home right next [Continue]
My husband and I once spent the entire first half of a Packers/Bears game combing burs from our golden retriever’s long hair. The Packers won that day, mostly because the Bears still . . . well, you know . . . so fortunately we don’t have to add that unpleasant task to the rituals we [Continue]
Have you met stinging nettle? If you have, your greeting was probably something like *!*(&%*^$!^#!! When you get to know nettle better, you’ll realize that your greeting was probably unnecessarily rude. Stinging nettle is not very noticeable – that is until you once get stung. Probably the only people who can identify it readily are [Continue]
Cattails are one of the most easily recognizable marsh plants. Even those who don’t know an oak tree from a tulip can usually identify cattails by their familiar hot-dog-on-a stick structure. Cattail plants are edible from top to bottom and way better for you than hot dogs. From them you can obtain four vegetables, [Continue]
Let me guess – when deer season is over, you don’t give another thought to your prime spot until late summer or early fall of the next year. That’s when you go up there and find out that your shooting lanes are overgrown with tree branches and brush so you start hacking away to clear [Continue]
Buckthorn is a nasty plant with a strong name that conjures up images of a 30-point rack, especially this time of year. In fact, you’re likely to see some buckthorn when you hit the woods. If you see a shrub or trees still holding its green leaves, it’s probably buckthorn. The wicked thorns that can [Continue]